Fabrizio Romano has given his trademark “here we go” to the news that Chelsea are set to appoint Enzo Maresca as their new manager in a deal from Leicester City.
The Italian tactician impressed in the Championship in the season just gone, helping the Foxes win promotion straight back to the Premier League after being relegated a year ago.
According to Romano on X, however, Leicester are now poised to lose their manager, who has been poached by Chelsea, with everything now all agreed for the highly-regarded 44-year-old to take over at Stamford Bridge, replacing Mauricio Pochettino after his recent departure…
Maresca looks an exciting appointment for the Blues, if a bit of a risky one given his relative lack of experience at the very highest level.
Still, Chelsea may perhaps look at the success of Mikel Arteta at rivals Arsenal as an example to follow, with the Spaniard ending up doing a superb job with the Gunners despite it actually being his first job in management.
Maresca – another Arteta after Guardiola experience?
Like Arteta, Maresca has previously worked under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, so it could be that he’ll have what it takes to emulate what those managers have done at their clubs.
Guardiola is the best manager in world football after immense success everywhere he’s managed, while Arteta has run his Man City sides very close in the last two seasons despite a fraction of the resources to work with.
If Maresca can take advantage of the set-up at Chelsea, with plenty of smart work being done in the transfer market to sign the best young players, then he could prove a shrewd appointment to finally deliver success to the west London club after a difficult few years and plenty of change under their new owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali.